Markjo, whatever justification you want to give it, they are taking data from flat maps. I don't see how it can be successfully argued that the earth is round, but flat maps are used because they "minimize distortion".

No Tom, they're taking data from an ellipsoidal reference model and projecting it to make flat maps because flat maps are easier to work with than ellipsoidal ones. I'm not sure how much more plainly the sources that you cite can say that.

There is no Flat Earth Map. We don't know where any discrepancies might show on such a map. There are monopole and bi-polar models, with a near infinite number of continental map configurations.

This suggests that you have looked for a map and there is none.

Now you are claiming that we are able to navigate using a map. Which is it? Is there a map or not?

If there is a map why have you claimed on many different threads that there is no map?

If you believe that there are flat map making techniques that we are able to use to navigate. How can you claim that there are a virtually limitless number of continental configurations? Don't these flat map making methods exclude maps which have Asia sharing borders with America?

I have not attempted to piece together the smaller flat earth maps that are being used for navigation and GIS work to try and find the configuration of the bigger map. As far as I am aware, it has never been attempted.

Looking for the Flat Earth map is not one of my projects at present time. If you want to make that your goal to dig into these maps and associated assumptions, go ahead. This forum is for your participation.

I have not attempted to piece together the smaller flat earth maps that are being used for navigation and GIS work to try and find the configuration of the bigger map. As far as I am aware, it has never been attempted.

Looking for the Flat Earth map is not one of my projects at present time. If you want to make that your goal to dig into these maps and associated assumptions, go ahead. This forum is for your participation.

As we have all gone over many times and has been shown many times, there is no such thing as a flat earth map. And there are no such things as smaller flat earth maps that are being used for navigation and GIS work. What you refer to as "smaller flat earth maps" are, again, for the thousandth time, based on a spherical ellipsoidal model of earth. AKA, a Globe.

I have not attempted to piece together the smaller flat earth maps that are being used for navigation and GIS work to try and find the configuration of the bigger map. As far as I am aware, it has never been attempted.

Looking for the Flat Earth map is not one of my projects at present time. If you want to make that your goal to dig into these maps and associated assumptions, go ahead. This forum is for your participation.

We can use maps to travel from Kansas to Alaska then use that exact same map to travel from Alaska to Brazil then use that exact same map to travel to and from all the continents and countries on earth.

It seems to me like someone has pieced together one full map of locations of all of the countries on earth. Do you disagree?

As we have all gone over many times and has been shown many times, there is no such thing as a flat earth map. And there are no such things as smaller flat earth maps that are being used for navigation and GIS work. What you refer to as "smaller flat earth maps" are, again, for the thousandth time, based on a spherical ellipsoidal model of earth. AKA, a Globe.

Those flat maps have an x-y coordinate system. They are literally flat maps from the standard practice of plane surveying.

I have not attempted to piece together the smaller flat earth maps that are being used for navigation and GIS work to try and find the configuration of the bigger map. As far as I am aware, it has never been attempted.

Looking for the Flat Earth map is not one of my projects at present time. If you want to make that your goal to dig into these maps and associated assumptions, go ahead. This forum is for your participation.

We can use maps to travel from Kansas to Alaska then use that exact same map to travel from Alaska to Brazil then use that exact same map to travel to and from all the continents and countries on earth.

It seems to me like someone has pieced together one full map of locations of all of the countries on earth. Do you disagree?

I don't agree that all way-points are available. Not only is it based on flat maps, some of the coordinate transformations are actually classified by government.

Between any two geographic coordinate systems, there may be zero, one, or many transformations. Some geographic coordinate systems do not have any publicly known transformations because that information is considered to have strategic importance to a government or company.

This is something that needs to be looked into at depth, not assumed or hand waved away with an ego of knowledge.

Why are some transformations classified and hidden from public? Which ones? The curious mind is burdened to find the answer.

As we have all gone over many times and has been shown many times, there is no such thing as a flat earth map. And there are no such things as smaller flat earth maps that are being used for navigation and GIS work. What you refer to as "smaller flat earth maps" are, again, for the thousandth time, based on a spherical ellipsoidal model of earth. AKA, a Globe.

Those flat maps have an x-y coordinate system. They are literally flat maps from the standard practice of plane surveying.

Ummm, pretty much all maps are flat for ease of use/transport. And, as we've gone over this before, as to X-Y coordinate system:

"By using the Cartesian coordinate system's simple XY coordinates, "plane surveying" methods can be used, speeding up and simplifying calculations. Second, the system is highly accurate within each zone (error less than 1:10,000). Outside a specific state plane zone accuracy rapidly declines, thus the system is not useful for regional or national mapping."

A flat map depicting a flat earth would seem to me to be a rather straight forward process. Of course the huge problem would be in getting any map to match the actual landscape especially South of the equator. The flat earth folks could prove their model by just taking a small section of Australia and mapping it to flat earth standards. Then anyone could compare that map to the actual land. If everything matches up, like it does with a globe earth map, then the FET folks could say 'See it works'. With the globe earth mapping system you can give me a couple of lat-long coordinates between two points and I can calculate the distance. Then I can travel between those two points and my travel distance will match what the map says.

For FE no explanation is possible, for RE no explanation is necessary.

Ummm, pretty much all maps are flat for ease of use/transport. And, as we've gone over this before, as to X-Y coordinate system:

"By using the Cartesian coordinate system's simple XY coordinates, "plane surveying" methods can be used, speeding up and simplifying calculations. Second, the system is highly accurate within each zone (error less than 1:10,000). Outside a specific state plane zone accuracy rapidly declines, thus the system is not useful for regional or national mapping."

Ummm, pretty much all maps are flat for ease of use/transport. And, as we've gone over this before, as to X-Y coordinate system:

"By using the Cartesian coordinate system's simple XY coordinates, "plane surveying" methods can be used, speeding up and simplifying calculations. Second, the system is highly accurate within each zone (error less than 1:10,000). Outside a specific state plane zone accuracy rapidly declines, thus the system is not useful for regional or national mapping."

Ummm, pretty much all maps are flat for ease of use/transport. And, as we've gone over this before, as to X-Y coordinate system:

"By using the Cartesian coordinate system's simple XY coordinates, "plane surveying" methods can be used, speeding up and simplifying calculations. Second, the system is highly accurate within each zone (error less than 1:10,000). Outside a specific state plane zone accuracy rapidly declines, thus the system is not useful for regional or national mapping."

Ummm, pretty much all maps are flat for ease of use/transport. And, as we've gone over this before, as to X-Y coordinate system:

"By using the Cartesian coordinate system's simple XY coordinates, "plane surveying" methods can be used, speeding up and simplifying calculations. Second, the system is highly accurate within each zone (error less than 1:10,000). Outside a specific state plane zone accuracy rapidly declines, thus the system is not useful for regional or national mapping."

And the reason why their accuracy rapidly declines when made larger is that they are "projections", as from a Globe, which introduces distortion.

You keep trying to use State Plane maps as some sort of evidence for "flat earth maps" when, as stated above and before, many times, they are, in fact, derived from a Globe.

I don't see how it is possible to argue that the maps are flat, but they are based on a globe.

Among other reasons, "Most state plane zones are based on either a transverse Mercator projection or a Lambert conformal conic projection."

The operative word is "projection".

That flat map looks something like the maps we are proposing with the northern or southern centers.

You are saying that the state plane maps are illustrated on a small part of that flat map, or alternatively another type of flat map? And that the whole map is called a "projection" because we live on a globe? I truly do not see how this trivia helps the meat of your argument in any way.

Ummm, pretty much all maps are flat for ease of use/transport. And, as we've gone over this before, as to X-Y coordinate system:

"By using the Cartesian coordinate system's simple XY coordinates, "plane surveying" methods can be used, speeding up and simplifying calculations. Second, the system is highly accurate within each zone (error less than 1:10,000). Outside a specific state plane zone accuracy rapidly declines, thus the system is not useful for regional or national mapping."

You are saying that the state plane maps are illustrated on a small part of that map, or alternatively another type of flat map? And that the whole thing is called a "projection" because we live on a globe? I don't see how this helps your argument in any way.

"State Plane Coordinate System (SPCS)

SPCS is a system of large-scale conformal map projections originally created in the 1930s to support surveying, engineering, and mapping activities throughout the U.S. and its territories. As a reminder, a map projection is a systematic transformation of the latitudes and longitudes of locations on the surface of a sphere or ellipsoid representing the Earth to grid coordinates (x, y or easting, northing values) on a plane."

What many flat earthers in these comments seem to be doing is failing to differentiate between a projection of a spherical earth onto a flat 2 dimensional surface and A FLAT 2 DIMENSIONAL SURFACE! The flat earth map would be a map of a flat 2 dimensional surface, whereas the mercator projection would be a projection of the 3d spherical earth onto a flat 2 dimensional surface.

Take the Flat Earth Map on the FE wiki. It is literally an azimuthal equidistant projection of the 3d spherical earth. It is the map that the UN uses for their logo, and flat earthers seemed to have taken it for their own. If you interpret this map as being a projection of the 3d spherical earth (an azimuthal equidistant one), then you realize that the areas further away from the north pole are increasingly distorted in size and shape, and then if you try to calculate quantities such as surface areas of countries you can correct for this distortion mathematically and arrive at the correct answer that we observe in reality.

If however you treat this map as an actual literal map of a flat earth (that is, an x to 1 linear projection of the flat earth, where x is the scale factor which linearly relates distances on your map to distances on the flat earth such that 1 unit of length on your map corresponds to X units of length on the flat earth), then if you try to go and calculate surface areas of countries you have no reason to try to correct for distortion, since there is no distortion in a one to one map, a special feature of a map of a flat surface. You will therefore find that your answers are totally off.

I find it sort of funny that flat earthers use a literal projection of the spherical earth as their map, one used by the UN on their logo no doubt.

Ummm, pretty much all maps are flat for ease of use/transport. And, as we've gone over this before, as to X-Y coordinate system:

"By using the Cartesian coordinate system's simple XY coordinates, "plane surveying" methods can be used, speeding up and simplifying calculations. Second, the system is highly accurate within each zone (error less than 1:10,000). Outside a specific state plane zone accuracy rapidly declines, thus the system is not useful for regional or national mapping."

And the reason why their accuracy rapidly declines when made larger is that they are "projections", as from a Globe, which introduces distortion.

You keep trying to use State Plane maps as some sort of evidence for "flat earth maps" when, as stated above and before, many times, they are, in fact, derived from a Globe.

I don't see how it is possible to argue that the maps are flat, but they are based on a globe.

Among other reasons, "Most state plane zones are based on either a transverse Mercator projection or a Lambert conformal conic projection."

The operative word is "projection".

That flat map looks something like the maps we are proposing with the northern or southern centers.

You are saying that the state plane maps are illustrated on a small part of that flat map, or alternatively another type of flat map? And that the whole map is called a "projection" because we live on a globe? I truly do not see how this trivia helps the meat of your argument in any way.

It’s a really interesting look at how the state of Utah goes about producing highly accurate maps.It illustrates quite a few things;How complex producing accurate maps areWhere they acquire their data sets fromHow impossible it would be for an individual to produce a map on their own without using pre-established data sets.How ludicrous the idea of producing a flat earth map isHow tricky it is producing accurate convenient flat maps of an area that is part of a curved surface.